Southern California -- this just in

Mel Gibson case went to prosecutors with no recommendation on possible charges

March 3, 2011 | 5:03
pm

Mel Gibson and his ex-girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, will learn soon whether they will face criminal charges connected to their ugly breakup.

Senior officials in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office are to be briefed next week on the evidence against Grigorieva, the final step in determining whether to prosecute Gibson for domestic violence and his former flame for extortion, a spokeswoman said.

Grigorieva has accused Gibson of punching her and threatening her with a gun during an altercation at his Malibu home last year. His lawyers have accused her of trying to extort money from him with now infamous recordings of his racist, profane rants.

The Sheriff’s Department conducted separate investigations of the allegations. Detectives finished the domestic violence investigation last summer, but the officers looking into the more complicated extortion matter only recently completed a six-month investigation.

Those investigators presented prosecutors with their findings Feb. 16, but did not say whether they believed the evidence amounted to a crime, said district attorney’s office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

“The investigating officer…was asked specifically and he told us they were presenting evidence to us and it would be up to us to decide what to file against whom,” Gibbons said.